Caramel | Fresh raspberries | Prune | Concord grapes | Brown sugar

Vanilla | Caramel | Light clove | White Pepper

Butterscotch | Burnt orange rind | Rye spice

With a solar eclipse taking place on April 8th, 2024, which will be viewable across portions of the U.S., Casey Jones Distillery is commemorating the event with a new bourbon. Casey Jones Total Eclipse Straight Bourbon is a sourced Kentucky bourbon that is distilled in small batches in a hybrid pot still by Master Distiller AJ Jones. The company also released a Moonshine (get it?) in 2017 and Kentucky State Senator Whitney Westerfield, on the Kentucky Senate floor, named the company’s Total Eclipse Moonshine the “Official Spirits of the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse.” To further commemorate the 2024 eclipse, the distillery also laid down a single barrel of bourbon to be released as Total Eclipse Cask Strength Single Barrel, which will be released as a distillery exclusive on Saturday, April 6, 2024.

Casey Jones Total Eclipse Straight Bourbon opens with soft scents of caramel and fresh raspberries. Accenting this are scents of prune and Concord grapes, creating a nice weighty aroma. The palate is more on the simple side, with traditional notes of vanilla and caramel pulling most of the weight. Light clove and white pepper add just a touch of punch. Likewise, the finish is dominated by butterscotch, but is nicely punched up by notes of burnt orange rind and rye spice.

Casey Jones Total Eclipse Straight Bourbon, above all else, is a bourbon with fun branding to mark a special occasion for those who get to experience it. I’m all for whiskeys with a fun concept that are often used to mark a specific event (typically holidays). There’s no getting beyond the bourbon’s age, though it doesn’t taste offensively young, it's more on the simple side than most craft bourbons nowadays. Casey Jones Distillery is lucky enough to be in or very near the path of totality for both solar eclipses in 2017 and 2024, so this release, along with their single barrel and moonshine releases, should prove to be fun in the moment of April’s celestial marvel.